I've won a surprising amount of games vs Lantern that I had no right winning either because they don't always have it, they play poorly, or our myriad of disruption+ways to win gets us there.
Sometimes their draw is just nuts - the last game I played, I had Clique for their bridge they were drawing, but whir was on top - they were DOB otherwise. I still ended up winning thanks to Exalted beats after I got a tracker through, ensuring I could draw Hierarchs. Sometimes their draw isn't nuts and we play T1 dork T2 Queller and beat them in holding up permission all game. It's a somewhat miserable MU, especially if they aren't proficient in their own deck, but a very winnable one. Mostly, if they can't land a Bridge they very likely aren't winning, and even then we have outs in Jace, potentially pridemage, and Hierarch.
I went 3-0-1 last night running the latest Chew 5-0 list with the changes mentioned above: -1 VoR +1 Pridemage, -1 JTMS -2 Will +1 Elspeth +2 Negate in the board.
Round 1 vs RUG Kiki Moon 2-0
Opponent was playing a RUG Moon deck with Krasis+Kiki. I didn't see either of these cards in two games. G1 he got a T3 Moon, but I had a Noble and Plains out and landed a Pridemage the turn after he moon'd. Ended up just beating him down, IIRC he played like... Goyf, Pyre, Snap->Pyre and that's basically it.
I remember sideboarding fairly poorly, but it didn't really matter. I had a 10/10 Knight and a Scooze which was keeping his Goyfs tiny and eliminating Pyre as an out. He dismembered my Scooze the one turn I tap out to Gavony, but it didn't really matter. Got a second Knight with Queller backup and he shows me the Krasis that can't save him.
Round 2 vs 4C Reveler 2-0
My opponents deck was essentially the Mardu reveler deck with green for Grim Flayer and Traverse. G1 he got kind of mana screwed and died fairly easily after I path'd his Reveler.
I bring in Reflector Mages, Scooze, Elspeth and Bojuka Bog over a Bird, Pridemage, Field of Ruin, both Cliques (bad vs souls) and a Meddling Mage. G2 is very long and drawn out. He plays 3 of his souls and all four Revelers. He probably had 10-15 cards left in library at the end of the game. I had lethal one turn where he was at two with two souls and a Reveler. He attacked with one of the souls vs my board of IIRC Voice and Tracker. I could have Jace bounced the other souls and killed him, but cast company instead since by that time I am very likely to hit a Mage and clearly this guy didn't leave himself DOB intentionally (he knew about Jace). I hit solo bird which felt awful and he draws Duress for my Jace, but Tracker ends up pulling it out after drawing like four cards.
Round 3 vs G Tron 1-1-1
I was playing against a friend I hadn't seen in a bit, and we basically drew because we spent too much time shooting the *****. Despite how much I hate playing against Tron, the games were pretty good and I think all of them could have gone either way with slightly better draws on either of our part.
G1 I am on the draw with T1 noble + flash dudes. No Knight but I manage to disrupt him from getting Tron with Field and Clique. I end up taking a Scrying out of his hand and using Queller on an O-Stone. I get a pretty mediocre company of Birds + Pridemage He gets to six mana and casts a Wurmcoil, but I have pridemage to stop lifegain for a turn. I've got lethal but he draws his seventh land to cast All is Dust. I throw out triple VoR, which he kills with O-Stone and then has the second O-Stone to wipe my lethal board again. He gets a Coil before I draw another relevant card and kills me.
I sideboard 4 counters, 2 stony, & 2 mage for 4 Path, 1 Scooze, 2 Tracker, 1 bird. G2 I mulligan into a medium hand of two land no blue source, stony, and blue three drops. Stony happens to be amazing this game and basically carries me to victory. I make a misplay where he has a 2/2 ballista and I don't reflector mage it because I forget about my own Stony. I end up winning anyway, Jace Fatesealing to ensure he doesn't draw any more lands.
G3 I have an amazing tempo hand with T1 Noble into Queller, Field, & Clique. I also have a Negate. He doesn't really have any gas, and I clique a Cage since I have company in hand. Time is called and I have just enough gas to kill him on the fifth turn. Unfortunately, I get a terrible company hitting Bird+Hierarch. I clique him and he has Scryings to hit Tron and an Ancient Stirrings. I am supposed to take Stirrings here, since it's 5 deep vs one when I CLique it. I don't and he finds Ulamog. Oops. He was dead anyway if my company wasn't so trash, but I still have outs. I missed trying to Jace into GQ, but I wouldn't have found it anyway. Ulamog eats my two fliers. If I had Unified Will instead of Negate in hand, I could stop his follow-up Ballista and out-race Ulamog with Birds+Exalted, but since it was Negate he decides not to concede. I think I could have earned a concession or actually won had I played tighter.
Round 4 vs Jeskai control 2-0
My opponent is playing a fairly top-end heavy Jeskai deck. I don't think he had JTMS, since I saw an Architect of Thought in G2. He had Rev, Torrential Gearhulk, & Secure the Wastes. G1 he buys a lot of time with Secure for 4-5, but he can't get an answer to my Knight which just beats in every turn. Jace was also pretty good, though he could actually pressure him well thanks to the Secure and bolt/electrolyze. He revs for 5 but draws into nothing and I win.
I board in 4 counters, scooze and Elspeth for 4 path & 2 birds. G2 I have a Knight that gets remanded, and then I decide to play on his turn since i have Clique/Queller/Company/Will. Finally I decide to cast a VoR and he casts Secure for 3... well, there goes the Unified Will plan! I manage to get ahead on board and he gets a board wipe. I follow up with Clique, which is bolted, and see Elspeth and Rev! I take Elspeth and untap to play a Knight. I am at seven and he has colonnades, so I am at risk to just dying if he has bolt and my follow up company doesn't hit a flier. He mainphase revs for 4, leaving a single U/W source open. I EoT company into Knight + Mage naming Path and win the game.
I think going forward I am going to try dropping Mage from the MB for +1 Scooze, +1 VoR and +1 Pridemage or Courser, and then having 2x Mage in the board. I might experiment with running Retreat again... likely would go to 1 Jace MB and drop the Pridemage/Course for 2x Retreat.
It's overall fairly solid. I don't mind not playing the combo, though I do miss Kessig sometimes. That card is just so good with KotR.
I think the Field of Ruin is a bit greedy and I think I'm going to just play a second GQ in the board and play either another shock or a second Sanctum in place of Field of Ruin. I also might cut a Clique and replace it with the second Scooze - could be wrong but I keep drawing multiples. Jace has been solidly medium. I definitely need more practice playing with the card.
I'm also really not impressed with Blessed Alliance. I feel like without Courser (maybe I can make room for one) we're super weak to Burn and Alliance just isn't a good card in that MU - two mana gain four is just so weak. It's great against stuff like Boggles and Infect, but against most midrangey decks I never bring in the card because there's really not much to board out and we want CoCo to remain relevant. I feel like it just rots in my sideboard most of the time.
Izzet Staticaster is a great sideboard card against Affinity. Many lists are also running MB Qasali Pridemage.
You can definitely run Stony Silence, Kataki, Reclamation Sage and Manglehorn has additional sideboard cards against Affinity and other Artifact decks. When I last played the deck I had 2 Staticaster, 1 Manglehorn & 1 Rec Sage in the board in addition to 1 MB Qasali Pridemage.
I've never played against Dredge with this deck (no one plays it locally, never see it on cockatrice), but I believe our plan is to gum up the board and prevent them from casting Conflagrate via exiling it with Scooze. Since the banning dredge has lost both speed and consistency, so a deck like ours that just plays a bunch of dudes and fliers can actually outgrind them if we don't let them board wipe us. Some people have advocated running Rhox War Monk for the dredge matchup, basically because Dredge can't race it.
What I'm saying is that sacrificing a creature and blowing 3 mana is only worth it if it wins you the game.
We'll just have to disagree with this. Sacrificing a mana dork for something better, even on T2, is fine with me in a lot of cases.
The comment on improving the combo game is a relevant one as well. In a matchup like Burn/Affinity/Storm/Whatever, the Evo isn't just your Finks/RecSage/Eidolon - it's another KotR. The card pulls double-duty in these MUs.
Regarding Bento's talk about tons of silver bullets: this is kind of presumptive. Running Evo doesn't in any way mean you butcher your sideboard for it. It's a one-of that gives me a bit more space/flexibility. I don't have to fill that space with a ton of dudes that I wouldn't be playing otherwise, and I don't. It's just solid because we're already pushed in the direction of playing creature sideboard cards. A great example of this is Kelvin's posted list, where none of his fetchable cards are even one-ofs. Still extra copies.
We also shouldn't avoid running a card because it's 'bad' against GDS. What about the other 88% of the format?
Not playing the card is 100% defensible. It certainly has an opportunity cost to run. But it's also a totally playable and solid card in our strategy.
1. There aren't really many creatures that straight up win a matchup. As such, the sacrifice clause on eldritch evolution is very onerous. By running Evo, you're running an extremely bad version of the creature that would have taken that slot. A yugioh creature that requires a tribute.
2. It gets especially bad when we consider that Eldritch Evo is borderline unplayable against decks like GDS or UW Control.
3, You can't always bank on creatures sticking to the board in late game scenarios. In top-deck wars, Eldritch has the potential to be just as dead as a land draw.
Evo being unplayable against blue decks isn't something I care about at all, though. It's a sideboard card, not a mainboard one. You're also typically not boarding in the card in matchups where you expect to go into topdeck mode quickly, with the exception of some midrange matchups where I think the trade off is worth having a pseudo extra copy of Knight/Tracker/Courser.
I think you guys are both asking Evo to do too much (aka win the game on its own, which it actually will do sometimes) and undervaluing it. I agree that having a second copy of the hate-dude you're boarding in is likely better than having one hate-dude and one evo. However, you usually don't need the second actual copy of the card (and if you do, you need to draw/CoCo into both) and Evo still has value even when you already found the card you're boarding it in with.
It has performed very well for me both in Knightfall and in Naya Midrange - a deck that is hurting for sideboard space far more than we are, to be fair.
Responding to this a bit late, haven't been following the thread recently, but:
I also dropped the Eldritch Evolution sideboard plan entirely. It seems so foolish to believe that it's a good game plan to have only a single tutor card act as the "second copy" of the creature. I feel that having a more solid sideboard composed of 2-of creatures was a much more reliable strategy over a larger sample size of games.
Why is that foolish? Evolution literally is an additional copy of any creature you have post-board, assuming you have a creature in play (very easy to facilitate, not something at risk in most MUs you bring in Evo for) and that your target isn't already in play (in which case, that's great).
By running Evo, you increase the amount of effective sideboard slots you have at, IMO, very little cost.
Kelvin Chew (Hyper) running a mash up of Knightfall and Vizier Druid. Talk about a spicy list. I kind of feel like this will end up being the worst of both worlds (aside from running Queller in Vizier Druid, which seems great) since the Vizier deck combos so well and the Knightfall combo really is an afterthought. Gives you much better post-board games against fair decks than Vizier Druid and better G1s than Knightfall.
How I ended up on lotus cobra in the list is a long story. But now after playing I love it because it speeds us up against the unfair decks, and puts us ahead of the fair decks, by allowing us to do multiple things per turn. The synergy between Knight, tracker and our ability to play instant speed (with fetchlands) is very powerful. We can cast additonal spells, or pump with gavony, canopy instantly replaces itself if needed. etc etc.
I cant imagine playing a list without them now. The alternatives (at least for me) is a 3/4th voice or an additonal copy of pridemage or spirit, which I havent found I need, I would much rather the explosiveness of t2 cobra + fetchland.
all I can say is test it. Im hoping more people try it, and im hoping its as good for them as it has been for me.
I played one last night (didn't have access to more, guess I sold mine a while back). Actually saw it in most games, though. Only cast it once, all other times it just sat in my hand as I did better things with my mana or held it to redeploy after a board wipe. Basically just felt like drawing a mana dork.
Our deck has some mana intensive things (mostly Kessig and Gavony, sometimes clues if we're going nuts but that's kind of a win-more scenario) but mostly isn't that mana hungry. While getting to play a three drop and a two drop on turn three when we don't have a dork/it's killed is nice, I don't think it's worth running a ninth mana dork that happens to (usually) be worse than a mana dork since it can't T2 a three drop.
I'll give it some more time, but so far it's exactly what I expected it to be.
On a more positive note, I almost crushed a Modern FNM after not playing for about a month and a half. 2-0 Jeskai Saheeli: tried to Blood Moon me G2, where I GQ'd him off of white in response. Poor boarding; 2-0 GB counters: HB, Balista, Constrictor, etc. Thought it was stompy after G1 where I combo'd T3, boarded really poorly but won thanks to Gavony; 2-1 Burn: Opponent ran out of gas G1 where I was otherwise definitely dead, lost G2 due to a terrible keep and poor boarding, crushed G3 with T2 Finks into CoCo.
Then I played against Skred with 4x Stormbreath dragon... now, I feel like normally this MU would be fine, but Stormbreath is just... ouch. He saw two in both games and I saw one Knight in two games despite casting two CoCos. Really terrible CoCos in this match, but it happens.
@JetpackBlues - Why did you decide to start playing Lotus Cobra and in what ways has it performed well for you?
Cobra can get us some explosive plays sometimes and lets us CoCo T3 like another Dork would. It also works better than a dork for generating mana when comboing. However, I don't see that as worth the slot, especially since I feel like the deck is pretty tight as is.
Blessed alliance is really good vs many midrange decks (jund, eldrazi, the mirror) and aggro (all kinds of zoo, bogles, burn, infect). It is really versatile, and this deck is one of the few that can use all three modes (other decks run it because it's good, but don't often use the untap mode). Surprise untapping knights is fun.
So what's your post board plan against, say, Jund? Are you trimming Quellers? I have plenty of cards I could board in, but not as many that I want to board out. Like -2 Retreat, -2 Pridemage, -1-2 Birds of Parades, -1-2 Queller for +2-3 Reflector Mage, +1-2 Finks, +2 Alliance?
Re: Eldrazi I haven't played against Bant at all basically, but I agree with the controlling approach listed. I have played against Colorless a bunch and am still unsure of exact board configuration. Unlike against Bant Eldrazi, I think we need to play an aggro-tempo plan. Negate/Unified will are very good as beating a resolved All is Dust or Ugin is... hopeful at best. Reflector Mage is amazing, letting us out-race their fast draws and delay stuff like Endbringer taking over the game.
I find myself rarely boarding in Alliance against midrange decks, but it's a hard call. You typically have four easy cuts in Retreat and Pridemage, and then you bring in your Reflector Mages and Finks. Staticaster is good against Abzan and some Grixis builds as well. Negate is also a consideration, but I find myself often not boarding it unless against a control-heavy Grixis list.
This makes it hard to find room for Alliance in some cases, as I think most of our creatures are better than it is. Trimming Quellers is an option, as pseudo-remand can often be mediocre in these MUs, but just having flash fliers is often great and they help a lot in closing out games.
i see eldritch evolution in sidesboards from time to time. in what matchup would this be brought in for? any match where you desperately want a 3 drop?
Any matchup where a specific creature is really good. I.e. to fetch Kataki vs Affinity, Eidolon vs combo decks, Staticaster vs x/1 decks. I've used this strategy in my Naya builds to decent success, basically allowing you to increase your density of sideboard cards.
I know Kelvin Chew has been running one for a while, but I don't really get why as he doesn't run any of these high-impact silver bullets. I don't think it's worth running to get generally good creatures.
Regarding planeswalkers: I've been testing Tamiyo and she's been solid and very fun to play with. Weaker than just running the fourth CoCo IMO, but a decent option.
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Sometimes their draw is just nuts - the last game I played, I had Clique for their bridge they were drawing, but whir was on top - they were DOB otherwise. I still ended up winning thanks to Exalted beats after I got a tracker through, ensuring I could draw Hierarchs. Sometimes their draw isn't nuts and we play T1 dork T2 Queller and beat them in holding up permission all game. It's a somewhat miserable MU, especially if they aren't proficient in their own deck, but a very winnable one. Mostly, if they can't land a Bridge they very likely aren't winning, and even then we have outs in Jace, potentially pridemage, and Hierarch.
Round 1 vs RUG Kiki Moon 2-0
Opponent was playing a RUG Moon deck with Krasis+Kiki. I didn't see either of these cards in two games. G1 he got a T3 Moon, but I had a Noble and Plains out and landed a Pridemage the turn after he moon'd. Ended up just beating him down, IIRC he played like... Goyf, Pyre, Snap->Pyre and that's basically it.
I remember sideboarding fairly poorly, but it didn't really matter. I had a 10/10 Knight and a Scooze which was keeping his Goyfs tiny and eliminating Pyre as an out. He dismembered my Scooze the one turn I tap out to Gavony, but it didn't really matter. Got a second Knight with Queller backup and he shows me the Krasis that can't save him.
Round 2 vs 4C Reveler 2-0
My opponents deck was essentially the Mardu reveler deck with green for Grim Flayer and Traverse. G1 he got kind of mana screwed and died fairly easily after I path'd his Reveler.
I bring in Reflector Mages, Scooze, Elspeth and Bojuka Bog over a Bird, Pridemage, Field of Ruin, both Cliques (bad vs souls) and a Meddling Mage. G2 is very long and drawn out. He plays 3 of his souls and all four Revelers. He probably had 10-15 cards left in library at the end of the game. I had lethal one turn where he was at two with two souls and a Reveler. He attacked with one of the souls vs my board of IIRC Voice and Tracker. I could have Jace bounced the other souls and killed him, but cast company instead since by that time I am very likely to hit a Mage and clearly this guy didn't leave himself DOB intentionally (he knew about Jace). I hit solo bird which felt awful and he draws Duress for my Jace, but Tracker ends up pulling it out after drawing like four cards.
Round 3 vs G Tron 1-1-1
I was playing against a friend I hadn't seen in a bit, and we basically drew because we spent too much time shooting the *****. Despite how much I hate playing against Tron, the games were pretty good and I think all of them could have gone either way with slightly better draws on either of our part.
G1 I am on the draw with T1 noble + flash dudes. No Knight but I manage to disrupt him from getting Tron with Field and Clique. I end up taking a Scrying out of his hand and using Queller on an O-Stone. I get a pretty mediocre company of Birds + Pridemage He gets to six mana and casts a Wurmcoil, but I have pridemage to stop lifegain for a turn. I've got lethal but he draws his seventh land to cast All is Dust. I throw out triple VoR, which he kills with O-Stone and then has the second O-Stone to wipe my lethal board again. He gets a Coil before I draw another relevant card and kills me.
I sideboard 4 counters, 2 stony, & 2 mage for 4 Path, 1 Scooze, 2 Tracker, 1 bird. G2 I mulligan into a medium hand of two land no blue source, stony, and blue three drops. Stony happens to be amazing this game and basically carries me to victory. I make a misplay where he has a 2/2 ballista and I don't reflector mage it because I forget about my own Stony. I end up winning anyway, Jace Fatesealing to ensure he doesn't draw any more lands.
G3 I have an amazing tempo hand with T1 Noble into Queller, Field, & Clique. I also have a Negate. He doesn't really have any gas, and I clique a Cage since I have company in hand. Time is called and I have just enough gas to kill him on the fifth turn. Unfortunately, I get a terrible company hitting Bird+Hierarch. I clique him and he has Scryings to hit Tron and an Ancient Stirrings. I am supposed to take Stirrings here, since it's 5 deep vs one when I CLique it. I don't and he finds Ulamog. Oops. He was dead anyway if my company wasn't so trash, but I still have outs. I missed trying to Jace into GQ, but I wouldn't have found it anyway. Ulamog eats my two fliers. If I had Unified Will instead of Negate in hand, I could stop his follow-up Ballista and out-race Ulamog with Birds+Exalted, but since it was Negate he decides not to concede. I think I could have earned a concession or actually won had I played tighter.
Round 4 vs Jeskai control 2-0
My opponent is playing a fairly top-end heavy Jeskai deck. I don't think he had JTMS, since I saw an Architect of Thought in G2. He had Rev, Torrential Gearhulk, & Secure the Wastes. G1 he buys a lot of time with Secure for 4-5, but he can't get an answer to my Knight which just beats in every turn. Jace was also pretty good, though he could actually pressure him well thanks to the Secure and bolt/electrolyze. He revs for 5 but draws into nothing and I win.
I board in 4 counters, scooze and Elspeth for 4 path & 2 birds. G2 I have a Knight that gets remanded, and then I decide to play on his turn since i have Clique/Queller/Company/Will. Finally I decide to cast a VoR and he casts Secure for 3... well, there goes the Unified Will plan! I manage to get ahead on board and he gets a board wipe. I follow up with Clique, which is bolted, and see Elspeth and Rev! I take Elspeth and untap to play a Knight. I am at seven and he has colonnades, so I am at risk to just dying if he has bolt and my follow up company doesn't hit a flier. He mainphase revs for 4, leaving a single U/W source open. I EoT company into Knight + Mage naming Path and win the game.
I think going forward I am going to try dropping Mage from the MB for +1 Scooze, +1 VoR and +1 Pridemage or Courser, and then having 2x Mage in the board. I might experiment with running Retreat again... likely would go to 1 Jace MB and drop the Pridemage/Course for 2x Retreat.
It's overall fairly solid. I don't mind not playing the combo, though I do miss Kessig sometimes. That card is just so good with KotR.
I think the Field of Ruin is a bit greedy and I think I'm going to just play a second GQ in the board and play either another shock or a second Sanctum in place of Field of Ruin. I also might cut a Clique and replace it with the second Scooze - could be wrong but I keep drawing multiples. Jace has been solidly medium. I definitely need more practice playing with the card.
I'm also really not impressed with Blessed Alliance. I feel like without Courser (maybe I can make room for one) we're super weak to Burn and Alliance just isn't a good card in that MU - two mana gain four is just so weak. It's great against stuff like Boggles and Infect, but against most midrangey decks I never bring in the card because there's really not much to board out and we want CoCo to remain relevant. I feel like it just rots in my sideboard most of the time.
You can definitely run Stony Silence, Kataki, Reclamation Sage and Manglehorn has additional sideboard cards against Affinity and other Artifact decks. When I last played the deck I had 2 Staticaster, 1 Manglehorn & 1 Rec Sage in the board in addition to 1 MB Qasali Pridemage.
I've never played against Dredge with this deck (no one plays it locally, never see it on cockatrice), but I believe our plan is to gum up the board and prevent them from casting Conflagrate via exiling it with Scooze. Since the banning dredge has lost both speed and consistency, so a deck like ours that just plays a bunch of dudes and fliers can actually outgrind them if we don't let them board wipe us. Some people have advocated running Rhox War Monk for the dredge matchup, basically because Dredge can't race it.
We'll just have to disagree with this. Sacrificing a mana dork for something better, even on T2, is fine with me in a lot of cases.
The comment on improving the combo game is a relevant one as well. In a matchup like Burn/Affinity/Storm/Whatever, the Evo isn't just your Finks/RecSage/Eidolon - it's another KotR. The card pulls double-duty in these MUs.
Regarding Bento's talk about tons of silver bullets: this is kind of presumptive. Running Evo doesn't in any way mean you butcher your sideboard for it. It's a one-of that gives me a bit more space/flexibility. I don't have to fill that space with a ton of dudes that I wouldn't be playing otherwise, and I don't. It's just solid because we're already pushed in the direction of playing creature sideboard cards. A great example of this is Kelvin's posted list, where none of his fetchable cards are even one-ofs. Still extra copies.
We also shouldn't avoid running a card because it's 'bad' against GDS. What about the other 88% of the format?
Not playing the card is 100% defensible. It certainly has an opportunity cost to run. But it's also a totally playable and solid card in our strategy.
Evo being unplayable against blue decks isn't something I care about at all, though. It's a sideboard card, not a mainboard one. You're also typically not boarding in the card in matchups where you expect to go into topdeck mode quickly, with the exception of some midrange matchups where I think the trade off is worth having a pseudo extra copy of Knight/Tracker/Courser.
I think you guys are both asking Evo to do too much (aka win the game on its own, which it actually will do sometimes) and undervaluing it. I agree that having a second copy of the hate-dude you're boarding in is likely better than having one hate-dude and one evo. However, you usually don't need the second actual copy of the card (and if you do, you need to draw/CoCo into both) and Evo still has value even when you already found the card you're boarding it in with.
It has performed very well for me both in Knightfall and in Naya Midrange - a deck that is hurting for sideboard space far more than we are, to be fair.
Why is that foolish? Evolution literally is an additional copy of any creature you have post-board, assuming you have a creature in play (very easy to facilitate, not something at risk in most MUs you bring in Evo for) and that your target isn't already in play (in which case, that's great).
By running Evo, you increase the amount of effective sideboard slots you have at, IMO, very little cost.
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Eternal Witness
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Noble Hierarch
3 Reflector Mage
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
4 Spell Queller
4 Vizier of Remedies
Non-Dudes
3 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Izzet Staticaster
4 Meddling Mage
3 Path to Exile
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tireless Tracker
Kelvin Chew (Hyper) running a mash up of Knightfall and Vizier Druid. Talk about a spicy list. I kind of feel like this will end up being the worst of both worlds (aside from running Queller in Vizier Druid, which seems great) since the Vizier deck combos so well and the Knightfall combo really is an afterthought. Gives you much better post-board games against fair decks than Vizier Druid and better G1s than Knightfall.
I played one last night (didn't have access to more, guess I sold mine a while back). Actually saw it in most games, though. Only cast it once, all other times it just sat in my hand as I did better things with my mana or held it to redeploy after a board wipe. Basically just felt like drawing a mana dork.
Our deck has some mana intensive things (mostly Kessig and Gavony, sometimes clues if we're going nuts but that's kind of a win-more scenario) but mostly isn't that mana hungry. While getting to play a three drop and a two drop on turn three when we don't have a dork/it's killed is nice, I don't think it's worth running a ninth mana dork that happens to (usually) be worse than a mana dork since it can't T2 a three drop.
I'll give it some more time, but so far it's exactly what I expected it to be.
On a more positive note, I almost crushed a Modern FNM after not playing for about a month and a half. 2-0 Jeskai Saheeli: tried to Blood Moon me G2, where I GQ'd him off of white in response. Poor boarding; 2-0 GB counters: HB, Balista, Constrictor, etc. Thought it was stompy after G1 where I combo'd T3, boarded really poorly but won thanks to Gavony; 2-1 Burn: Opponent ran out of gas G1 where I was otherwise definitely dead, lost G2 due to a terrible keep and poor boarding, crushed G3 with T2 Finks into CoCo.
Then I played against Skred with 4x Stormbreath dragon... now, I feel like normally this MU would be fine, but Stormbreath is just... ouch. He saw two in both games and I saw one Knight in two games despite casting two CoCos. Really terrible CoCos in this match, but it happens.
Cobra can get us some explosive plays sometimes and lets us CoCo T3 like another Dork would. It also works better than a dork for generating mana when comboing. However, I don't see that as worth the slot, especially since I feel like the deck is pretty tight as is.
So what's your post board plan against, say, Jund? Are you trimming Quellers? I have plenty of cards I could board in, but not as many that I want to board out. Like -2 Retreat, -2 Pridemage, -1-2 Birds of Parades, -1-2 Queller for +2-3 Reflector Mage, +1-2 Finks, +2 Alliance?
Re: Eldrazi I haven't played against Bant at all basically, but I agree with the controlling approach listed. I have played against Colorless a bunch and am still unsure of exact board configuration. Unlike against Bant Eldrazi, I think we need to play an aggro-tempo plan. Negate/Unified will are very good as beating a resolved All is Dust or Ugin is... hopeful at best. Reflector Mage is amazing, letting us out-race their fast draws and delay stuff like Endbringer taking over the game.
This makes it hard to find room for Alliance in some cases, as I think most of our creatures are better than it is. Trimming Quellers is an option, as pseudo-remand can often be mediocre in these MUs, but just having flash fliers is often great and they help a lot in closing out games.
Any matchup where a specific creature is really good. I.e. to fetch Kataki vs Affinity, Eidolon vs combo decks, Staticaster vs x/1 decks. I've used this strategy in my Naya builds to decent success, basically allowing you to increase your density of sideboard cards.
I know Kelvin Chew has been running one for a while, but I don't really get why as he doesn't run any of these high-impact silver bullets. I don't think it's worth running to get generally good creatures.
Regarding planeswalkers: I've been testing Tamiyo and she's been solid and very fun to play with. Weaker than just running the fourth CoCo IMO, but a decent option.